Actual, Real-Live Glorious Trainwrecks @Babycastles proposal

UPDATE: It's been submitted, but we can still make changes if the proposal is picked up.
Thanks everyone for your feedback and involvement!

I've been involved with Babycastles for a little while now and THIS popped up.

My first idea was that a group Glorious Trainwrecks show would be pretty sick.
I gauged some interest in the Discord, and it seems as though people were pretty enthusiastic about it, so I thought I would post on here!

So, I need your help!

I figure, this should be a collaborative effort from the community to come up with what this show is.
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UPDATED
PROPOSAL
4
FEBRUARY
2018WHAT WILL BE ON THE FORM

Glorious Trainwrecks Goes to NYC is a salon style group show curated by and featuring many members from the Glorious Trainwrecks community. The games will consist of games made for a specific Glorious Trainwrecks Babycastles game Jam and older games that have been submitted to the site over the years. Based on the amount of submissions, games will be shown on as many computers as possible. Based on submissions and computers available, some computers will have multiple games on them which will change by a timer. The amount of games shown will reflect the diversity of members on the website. There will be a computer/group of computers where people can make flickgames and plingpling games that can also be shown in the gallery. The show will coincide with the release of a Glorious Trainwrecks CD/Zine that will be available.

WHAT WON'T BE ON THE FORM

Depending on how many computers there are, we will decide how many games we take per person.

There will be a submission cut-off date.

Submissions can be from the Babycastles Jam that will happen if the proposal is picked up, or they can be games you've already made.

Games submitted/made should be things that they think would show well in a gallery/arcade/physical setting.

When people submit games, they're required to have some metadata saying what input the game needs, whether sound (headphones?) is necessary, whether the game only runs on >Win32, etc.

The Klik n Play making setup could look something like this.

(maybe like this rubbing table)

Events would take the form of performances, talks, and possibly tournaments by Glorious Trainwrecks adjacent people.

Feel free to say if you are into any of these things or not, feedback is necessary!

BUT

Before any of this happens, we have to submit this by February the 5th!
That's in about a week!

So,

we need to nail down some specifics for the form...

A Description:
I want to make sure everyone is happy with the description that is submitted.

What games might the exhibition show?
If you want to submit a previously made game, or if you know you want to make a game for the jam, please comment below so I know who exactly is interested in this.

Events?
Does anyone have any ideas for events that may happen during the exhibition?
I thought an in person Klik of the Month could be cool. What would an opening and closing event be like?
Also, how long maybe would this be open? I was thinking maybe about a month?

When/Who can help?
If anyone can help organize things, when would you be able to help?
Also, if you are in New York or the New York area, would you be able to help set up things in the gallery?

And together we can make the world a better place! :-)

Also, if you have any question, feel free and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

Would be cool to meet ya in person. Also, in regards to favorite games, maybe we can just make sure to reach out to people who have made some of our favorites and see if and what they would want to submit.

Sounds great! For certain works I think tight curation is important, but I don't think the spirit of glorious trainwrecks would come across if there were only 5 or so games. And I wouldn't want to have to choose 'the best of the best', that's also not in the spirit of this site.

I definitely have some games I'd like to show! I don't think I have enough time to make a full game for the show (unless it's after May), but I'd definitely show some of my already-posted games (and maybe some prototypes which I haven't posted yet).

I've been working on an arcade shooter inspired by various public domain characters. I have something worth showing already, I'll work out the kinks by Feb 5, and depending on my free time I'll add some features before the event, like high scores and scaling difficulty.

This is really neat! I'm not located anywhere near New York, alas, but I would like to help with organizing. What sort of help would you need?

I would say I'm maybe a little skeptical of having multiple games on each computer. If we have a bunch of submissions it makes some sense (and is maybe unavoidable), but I guess I'm a bit worried about people viewing this as a smorgasboard as opposed to a carefully curated meal... if that makes sense. I feel like a lot of stuff from the pirate karts were mostly ignored. Of course, I will cede to you, the gallery staff, and people who know more about this kind of thing than me :)

I can also submit one of my older games as well if you'd like, or possibly make something newer if there's time.

I would definitely participate in the jam. I would love to submit some other games if possible, but I'm more active on the discord than this site so most of my games are on my itch.io page. Is that an issue? If so, what would I need to do?

Also, what kinds of games are you looking for to be in the show?

Is there anything you need help with? I'm not local to NY, so the only thing I can really do to help is to help spread the word around the internet. Maybe that could reach some folks who are local to NY who would be interested in helping out at the physical space. Or whatever else needs to be done.

You shouldn't cede to me or the gallery staff, this should be a community effort and everyone should be considered!

I am a bit skeptical of having multiple games on each computer too. There have been good ideas surrounding both. My initial idea was to just have as many computers as possible and one game per-computer. However, Stephen from Babycastles said it would be cool if games were on a timer and would switch every 10 minutes or so. I also like the idea that there could be a hot key to switch between a random selection of games. Maybe a hot key and it switches? Maybe some computers are switching every 10 minutes and some just have one game? We could easily do both! I personally am a "medium is the message" kind of person, so I like that it could be a lot of stuff because Glorious Trainwrecks isn't necessarily a carefully curated meal. However, showing the public "our best" and making sure people get a good taste of everything is also important. I think it should be some healthy place in between a smorgasbord and a meal if that makes sense.

Having older, more "classic" games I think will help things feel more like a meal though! Basically, submit whatever you think would show the best in your eyes.

Now that I'm looking at all of these things again, maybe a like "jam" game would be on a switching computer and maybe we can nominate some "classic" games that would be static on another machine?

Basically, anything goes. Preferably something on the short side that is more immediate, but it really doesn't matter.

For now, spreading the word on the internet would be pretty helpful and finding interest. Making sure older members know would also be helpful. Also, if you have any ideas for the instillation, those ideas and discussions would be of great help!

Maybe I good solution is have them switch only if no one's playin, like every five minutes (maybe even shorter is better)? So people just hanging out might see different games in their peeipheral vision, and sometimes one might catch their attention so they'll jump on it.

Another, more laborious option is switching things out every day / few days / week.

My personal preference is for all the game sto be treated equally, so no special treatment for 'classics' or whatever. I think that best reflects the spirit of this place.

Personally, I would likely not be able to assist in staffing this (I live further south on the east coast USA), but could submit some of my more recent works. If the exhibition date is further off, I could likely participate in the game jam for this.

I think for right now the proposal and getting people interested is the most important for now, because we don't know if it would happen yet.
I've been trying to reach out to as many Glorious Trainwrecks members as possible and trying to get them to comment or what not.

Flyers would be amazing and they work pretty well in the city.
Coming up with games you are willing to submit is also important right now so we can show examples of what would be shown.
The idea of a CD or zine or combo CD/Zine would be amazing! That would be a fun thing to collaborate on.

This is all very helpful. I agree with all the important issues and especially the not inviting the internet in order to show Glorious Trainwrecks's unique voice.

The klik & play thing is really cool, maybe we can try to figure out something like that! When I messaged Anna, she mentioned something like that.
I'm also thinking maybe if the quantity isn't what's the draw for this exhibition, even though I think it should have more games than a typical Babycastles show. Then we should do an interesting instillation for each game that is shown.

I am personally just don't want to only have 4-5 games because I would not like to leave anyone out, and because it seems like more than 4-5 people would want to participate. Maybe the solution is just group curating things in a caring way. Maybe not tight curation, but like tighter than having every game on the website.

I like the idea for GT-adjacent people giving performances or talks. If anyone has ideas for what these things could be, that would be very helpful. I'm sure some people might be able to come in too, or we can figure out when some people would be around.

Only the proposal has to be done by the 5th, I should have made that more clear. The suggested jam should be after the proposal has been picked up. I like that we wouldn't advertise the jam to people outside of the community.

Seems like we need a good middle ground then. The date of this show can be whenever. I was thinking April may be good. Honestly, you could submit whatever, I don't think it should only be new stuff, because a lot of people haven't seen any of our old stuff.

Any chance of a remote call-in interview or web-based broadcast where someone (cough SpindleyQ cough) could chat about game-making and the game jam and/or trashgame (is that what this is called?) aesthetic? Could that be sorted out for a specific date during the exhibition?

Maybe a way for all of the Discord users to speak on collaborations, GT, and how this has persisted as times and technology have changed?

In your post you've got "one submission per person".
This seems fair at first, but some people have a massive discography and they'd like to submit more than 1 game. Considering that without the proposal we don't know how much space we'll have or how we'll organize it, it may be better to allow unlimited submissions, and cut from that if needed.

The method of cutting that I suggest would be to cut games from authors who submitted more than one game first, so that ideally every author gets at least one game in the gallery. Probably preference should also be given to games that were created specifically for this event. Of course, if every submission can fit, then make no cuts.

Obviously, I am biased, because I will only submit 1 (maybe 2) games, and I am making it for this event. These suggested rules are advantageous to me, and if you want to suggest rules that are better for you and/or everyone, feel free to do so.

This sounds pretty fair. I'd say everyone would be able to get in at least one game if they made it specifically for the event or not. Also, we don't know if this will happen until the proposal is accepted.

increpare said we could show flickgame and plingpling at the space! I personally like those and http://bravitzlana.com/ over klik n play, but maybe we can have all of these and even ZZT because knp and zzt have been so important for community in the past.

I have no idea right now how much or little I'd be able to contribute, but I would like to second the thought that it's worth considering other forms this project could take besides Another Huge Pirate Kart.

Attributes I think are important:
- inclusivity - everyone can submit games (I kind of really like the idea of doing a Klik of the Month onsite - I wonder how feasible it would be to set up a computer that literally just has Klik & Play on it & auto-submits anything that gets saved to the site?)
- discovery - attendees should be encouraged to try things that are unfamiliar
- equality - everyone's work should be on roughly equal footing; all has value

Attributes I think are not necessarily important:
- huge quantity - I did the quantity thing with the Pirate Kart as a hook to get people excited to participate. People are already excited to participate!
- inviting the internet - I think a Glorious Trainwrecks show should prioritize involving the community we already have. The IGF / GDC karts kind of ended up being, to some degree, a platform for random frustrated indie devs - and for those events, that made sense. But I think, in 2018, Glorious Trainwrecks as a community has interesting things to say, and those things deserve not to be drowned out by strangers in the name of showing that every game is important.

Of course take this with a grain of salt - I'm not Glorious Trainwrecks, you all are!

i could probably drive over there if i had enough notice. I think if i was going to submit something i'd probably submit one of the games i already made. I think a good idea could also be to have people also show some of their favorite things from the site, that might be an interesting perspective.

Like the idea a lot. I agree that treating games equally is important. Also agree that, without wanting to exclude people, making it a totally open event may mean people with no previous connection with this place may treat it as no more than another way to hype their latest product - see this happen with itch.io jams quite a bit. Glorious Trainwrecks does have something special and it would be great if a show could capture something of that and not be just another game jam event.

I'm a bit confused - the proposal has to be done by 5th Feb. But do the games have to submitted by then? Or will the suggested jam be later? Bit tricky for me to do something in the next few days. Feel like I'd like to do something new rather than submit an older game. No theme mentioned - so anything you want?

'Fraid I can't help overmuch with lugging stuff around as, despite the name, New York is a bit far from Yorkshire.

i understand the tension between wanting to show as many games as possible and focusing on a few. the sheer quantity and diversity of stuff on this website is special and worth highlighting. but the games themselves are also special and i feel like they deserve more than just transient attention. i think having a lot of games, especially if they're not even persistent on each computer, makes it hard to properly consider any of them, and it makes it harder to find common experience with other people who saw the show. for the same reason i often find exhibitions with 4-5 things more satisfying than ones with 40-50. but that's just me personally.

blueberry soft's zine/cd idea is nice, perhaps a way of offering a more abundant set of games to people who are interested, if you do go for a more tightly curated show.

also, if you want to fill the proposal with more events, you could probably find at least a few GT-adjacent people around nyc who might like to give a talk or a performance or something? i wish i lived nearby but i don't (for now).